The Right is Utterly Failing the Integrity Test

The Roy Moore controversy really has me, and a lot of people I know, just incredulous. We aren’t surprised that a GOP elected official would be making sexual advances towards a 14 year old girl. That kind of appalling behavior just is no longer a surprise. Deeply disturbing? Yes. Surprise? No. What disturbs us is the idea that anyone would back this guy while acknowledging that he probably did this.

Also not surprising, I have seen all kinds of rationalizations for support of Roy Moore by people claiming religious faith, even including claims of his critics having “a demon” and the like. Sorry, my religious friends, but if someone thinks when writers do a critical, fair and balanced, academic analysis based on sociocultural influences and an honest review of a text that there is something wrong with the writer (such as he/she has a demon, etc.)…

you are FAILING the INTEGRITY test.

When your text and the history of your faith are embedded in practices that we find detestable by today’s standards, and you can’t recognize that and wrestle honestly with what that means about your belief system, you don’t come across as intellectually honest in any way, shape, or form.

You really cannot claim the moral high ground, that you represent family values, or any kind of moral superior position. You can try, but those of us paying attention are either just going to look at you in pity or laugh.

Your political positions have been making you sound like someone who will make any and every excuse for the troublesome behavior of those aligned with you religiously and politically, and frankly, while it’s certainly no longer a shock, it’s pretty disappointing every…single…time.

Believe it or not, contrary to a lot of people these days professing religious faith, most of the public actually still believes that integrity matters. You don’t get to hide under a cloak of forgiveness and history in regards to these matters. You need to own up to it just as every single one of these powerful men are who are currently being thrown under the bus in Hollywood or anywhere else…or…

you are complicit and just as much to blame as their victims…because you are an enabler. You are enabling this garbage by turning a blind eye and hiding behind your religious “convictions,” and it’s not fooling anyone.

You can do this, this hiding behind your moralistic world view, but don’t act so surprised anymore when people fight your figures of the ten commandments in public spaces, fight the installation of huge crosses on military grounds, or want to get rid of tax breaks for churches and religious organizations.

Don’t act so surprised, though, if your alignment with people advocating racism, looking the other way in the face of sexual violence against minors, and a prideful, pussy-grabbing president causes the general public to take a step back and to reevaluate the value of your faith to our country, at large, and then stops financing and supporting it through tax breaks and public monuments.

See, when you do this you are showing society that encouraging and supporting your faith and belief system is actually a detriment to society, not a benefit, and we won’t continue to support you in this. We will strip you of your tax shelters, we will fight to have your monuments removed from public places, and we will embrace pluralism even harder.

Your hard alignment with these deviant people and abusers in positions of power is not going to give you anything but very temporary wins. You may have won the battle last year at the polls, but you will find that the things you claim are important will quickly lose ground to a very different America.

The youth of America are steering left. They are moving away from bigotry and racism. They prefer a fair and pluralistic America. They are angry at prior generations and corporate America for sacrificing their future happiness in pursuit of money and power. The tsunami of ill-will is almost upon you.

Are you really going to hang onto these dated and extremely harmful politicians and conflicting value system? Or are you going to find a path to the future that embraces others and holds integrity above political loyalties? Are you going to embrace a John Pavlovitz style faith? Or are you going to destroy your credibility for generations by following and supporting a corrupt, malicious, and poorly considered GOP agenda?

Have you just become sheep for these wolves? Or are you going to start valuing wisdom like those many generations before you, the wisdom of Solomon, and wrestling with the hard issues of today with integrity, so that there may somehow still be room for your faith to grow?

Please stop acting so surprised that you are losing us, and really consider where you are headed, because the America you are advocating for is something most of us no longer want to have anything to do with.